Pedagogic Strategies for Teaching Large Classes’

Purpose – This study aims to assist accounting academics in reflecting on teaching strategies that enhance teaching and guide accounting students to take responsibility for their learning. This paper uses analogies to discuss what the teacher does and what the student does, calling on accounting academics to reflect on their teaching strategy in large classes to improve student engagement and empower agency.
Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an autoethnographic approach to reflect on different pedagogic strategies when teaching accounting students. Four ‘theories of teaching’ (Fox, 1983), portrayed as simple and developed analogies, are used to demonstrate how different analogies apply to various teaching practices. The images of the analogies are extremely useful for reflecting and articulating different teaching strategies for large classes.
Originality/value – With the massification of higher education (Scott, 1995), teaching large classes often reverts to a teacher-centred approach, with the students being passive learners. Analogies are useful to assist accounting academics in reflecting on their teaching strategies in large classes to shift our focus on what the student does and how they engage, participate and learn.
Findings – Using personal experiences to interpret teaching strategies and practices, this study describes reflective ways of framing teaching and learning in accounting. Accounting academics are called to reflect on their pedagogical approaches when teaching large classes. With the description of simple and developed analogies, this study concludes that these images of different analogies are extremely useful in illustrating the teaching environment, what the academics do and what the student does, and as such, to reflect on a personal teaching strategy.
Practical implications – This study has practical implications as it calls accounting academics to action; to reflect and articulate a teaching strategy by considering and comparing analogies that describe different ways of thinking about teaching and learning.
Limitations – This is a reflective study, and the views expressed in this study stem from a review of teaching and learning literature and the authors’ experiences as accounting academics.